A Novel Three-Dimensional Biomaterial for the Production of Multiple Blood Cell Types

This Phase I project will examine the feasibility of utilizing a novel three dimensional culture device, termed Cellfoam to support the in vitro production of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets from primitive CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). The high demand for blood and blood components in the civilian and military populations, coupled with the growing risk of blood-borne infectious diseases, necessitates the evaluation of high-throughput strategies for generating safe alternatives to donor-derived blood. Preliminary work has shown that Cellfoam devices are capable of maintaining the immature HPC phenotype in the absence of co-cultured stromal cells or supplemented cytokines, and that CD34+ HPCs in short-term Cellfoam cultures retain the multipotent ability to produce myeloid, lymphoid and erythroid progency. These unique capabilities will be exploited in Phase I to evaluate the ability of Cellfoam to support the survival of both immature and lineage committed HPCs, and to facilitate their targeted differentiation in the presence of selected exogenous cytokines into erythroid, myeloid and platelet lineages. The ability to support HPC survival while expanding subsets into functional blood cells in a single culture system may ultimately lead to the ability to produce an entire repertoire mature blood cells in vitro.